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  • Denver successfully sent mental health professionals, not police, to hundreds of calls

    February 06, 2021 |

    USA Today |

    Text |

    800-1500 Words

    Response Location: United States, Denver, Colorado

    In its first six months, Denver's STAR program (Support Team Assistance Response) handled 748 emergency calls that in the past would have gone to the police or firefighters. Two-person teams of a medic and clinician helped people with personal crises related mainly to homelessness and mental illness. None of the calls required police involvement and no one was arrested. The city plans to spend more to expand the program, which is meant to prevent needless violence and incarceration from calls to the police that other types of first-responders can better address.

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  • Health care workers replaced Denver cops in handling hundreds of mental health and substance abuse cases — and officials say it saved lives

    February 06, 2021 |

    CBS News |

    Text |

    800-1500 Words

    Response Location: United States, Denver, Colorado

    Denver's STAR program (Support Team Assisted Response) replaced police officers with health professionals on 748 calls for help. In incidents involving mental health, homelessness, and substance abuse, police backup was never needed, no one was arrested, and minor crises did not risk escalating into violence because of police presence. The six-month pilot project will expand to more parts of the city and more hours of the week, with an infusion of city money to supplement the private funding that got the program started.

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  • Inside the L.A.P.D.'s Experiment in Trust-Based Policing

    February 05, 2021 |

    Reasons to be Cheerful |

    Text |

    800-1500 Words

    Response Location: United States, Los Angeles, California

    The Community Safety Partnership Bureau of the Los Angeles Police Department has worked for a decade in 10 neighborhoods to prevent crime through building trust among residents, rather than through the LAPD's costly and troubled war on gangs. One study found that through long-term involvement in neighborhood life, with highly trained officers working closely with community organizers, CSP had helped increase public trust, save public money, and lower violent crime.

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  • Minneapolis Is Funding Artists' Community Healing Projects With Police Dollars

    February 03, 2021 |

    Next City |

    Text |

    800-1500 Words

    Response Location: United States, Minneapolis, Minnesota

    Through its Creative CityMaking program, the city of Minneapolis pays artists to use their skills to promote healing and community-building in projects they design on their own. The program had existed for seven years when the George Floyd case roiled Minneapolis. The city council carved $150,000 out of the police budget to add to its artist-led community healing work. One of the 10 most recent grantees, Rising From the Ashes, produced a series of online gatherings for local queer artists and artists of color, concluding with an online exhibit of art made during the 2020 uprising.

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  • In the first six months of health care professionals replacing police officers, no one they encountered was arrested

    February 02, 2021 |

    Denverite |

    Text |

    800-1500 Words

    Response Location: United States, Denver, Colorado

    Denver's STAR (Support Team Assisted Response) program deliberately reduces potentially violent encounters between uniformed police officers and troubled people by responding to certain low-level crises with a mental health clinician and a medic. In STAR's first six months, the team offered 748 people help rather than jail, without requiring any arrests to resolve problems. With more resources, the team could have handled more than 2,500 incidents. The police chief supports the program's expansion, saying it frees his officers to handle more serious matters.

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  • SC law enforcement agencies are supposed to report info on traffic stops, but most are not

    January 28, 2021 |

    The Greenville News |

    Text |

    1500-3000 Words

    Response Location: United States, South Carolina

    After the South Carolina legislature in 2005 began requiring police to enforce a seat-belt law with traffic stops, it imposed on all police departments a duty to track and report traffic-stop data on drivers' race. The law was meant as a way to prevent biased policing, through public disclosure of disparities. But only about one-third of the state's law enforcement agencies have consistently complied with the law, and some never have. Some blame ignorance of how the system should work. But another explanation is the state has done little or nothing to enforce the law.

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  • Cops, crisis calls and conflict over who should help

    January 28, 2021 |

    Crosscut |

    Podcast |

    Over 15 Minutes

    Response Location: United States, Seattle, Washington

    Seattle Police Department's crisis response team answers some of the city's many 911 calls for people in distress, pairing police trained in handling such calls with mental health professionals. The aim is to counter the default policing approach to problems that usually involve mental illness or substance abuse, which is to control people. It doesn't always work, due to the complexity of the calls, the nature of policing, and the department's limited resources devoted to the program. But, when it works, it can help rather than escalate situations, and avoid the ultimate failure, the use of excessive force.

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  • Seattle Cut Its Police Budget. Now the Public Will Decide How To Spend the Money.

    January 28, 2021 |

    The Appeal |

    Text |

    800-1500 Words

    Response Location: United States, Seattle, Washington

    Since 2017, Seattle residents have had a direct say in how some city money is spent on neighborhood projects. It's a form of "participatory budgeting" that has been spreading from Brazil through many U.S. cities. After the 2020 racial justice protests, King County Equity Now, Decriminalize Seattle, and other groups spent several months calling for a budget that takes money from policing and invests in "true public health and safety" projects. After eight weeks of hearings, the city agreed to put $30 million – $12 million cut from police – into a citizen-controlled safety budget.

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  • More Than 1,000 Open Prostitution Cases In Brooklyn Are Going To Be Wiped From The Files

    January 28, 2021 |

    Buzzfeed |

    Text |

    1500-3000 Words

    Response Location: United States, New York, New York

    The Brooklyn district attorney is prosecuting few prostitution cases and has dismissed 262 cases that he and sex worker advocates say are a byproduct of law enforcement unfairly targeting trans women and women of color. The DA is working toward dismissing more than 1,000 cases and declining to prosecute all new cases. While legislative action is needed to achieve full decriminalization and to void the 25,000 criminal records that date to 1975 in Brooklyn, the DA exercised his discretion based on the harm done by arresting women for sex work and on related loitering charges.

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  • An Oregon city's decades-old alternative to police

    January 28, 2021 |

    Crosscut |

    Podcast |

    Over 15 Minutes

    Response Location: United States, Eugene, Oregon

    Like many cities, Seattle is looking to Eugene, Oregon, for a model to shift resources from police to unarmed crisis responders handling 911 calls about mental health, addiction, family conflict, and other non-criminal problems. Eugene's CAHOOTS program has been doing such work for half a century, and since 1989 sending medic-and-counselor teams on calls. In 2019 it saved $8 million in police costs and $14 million for ambulances and emergency room visits. But, while taking police out of situations where they might cause more problems than they solve, it's only as good as its region's social services.

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